Three Tiny Notes on Amoris Laetitia

1. An apostolic exhortation is not, by its very nature, a non-magisterial document. It is the content of a papal document that reveals its magisterial relevance, not its name or category — no one doubts Familiaris Consortio, the John Paul II exhortation on his synod on the family, was extremely relevant in sorting out important Magisterial points. Amoris Laetitia itself does not say that it is not itself magisterial: what it says, in its highly explosive paragraph 3, is that the Magisterium does not need to be invoked or suffer intervention to sort all Catholic questions. On the other hand, this same paragraph opens up a Pandora’s Box of decentralization of the Magisterium, creating a centrifugal force which can ruin Catholic doctrinal unity.

2. Saying Amoris Laetitia is not a big deal, and not magisterially relevant is simply not true. The present Pope and his successors will not act as if it were not magisterially relevant, and bishops on the ground will certainly invoke it in their own Magisterial pronouncements. Amoris Laetitia will certainly have its place in future editions of the Denzinger and in any future revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

3. Francis, with some of his previous documents, but particularly with Amoris Laetitia, introduced a kind of “uncertainty principle” in Catholic doctrine and hermeneutics on morals, marriage, and family life, and that itself is magisterially relevant.

5 comments on “Three Tiny Notes on Amoris Laetitia”

The text is not worth the paper it is written on. As for it being ‘Magisterial text’. –

Two points need to be clarified here.

1. All text emanating from the hierarchy, even from the Pope are themselves subject to Tradition, the deposit of the faith. If it dose not conform to that, it can not be said to be a binding text, nor a true ‘magisterial text’ the true sense of that term.

2. Even from the conciliar stand point – It seems selective to want to say that this is some how a magisterial text to be taken seriously when it even undermines other conciliar texts like those of JPII which were far more conservative on the same related issues. It seems like a case of conciliar selectivity.

Quomodo — the beauty of novelty and evolution of doctrine is that the current perp needn’t foresee where it will end. No, JPII didn’t intend Francis’ abomination. However, he worked to craft his exception to the remarried problem. He pushed the envelope, and that’s what innovators do. When one plays this game, he knows it will continue after he’s gone. And that is the proof of the demonic nature of novelty, i.e., someone down below is intending every future deviation!